Reconceptualizing gender and reconstructing social life: Ugandan women and the path to national development

This article focuses on how women's responses to crisis and social change in Uganda signal attempts to achieve a more gender-equal social life while facilitating national development. After an introduction, the article reviews research on women's response to change and points out the limitations of this research. In the next section, the article provides a historical overview of Uganda's gender system and the political and economic changes that occurred during the 1970s and early 1980s. The third main section argues that while the social structural changes created widespread hardship, they also provided openings for women to advance their interests. Thus, the National Resistance Movement of the mid-1980s responded to the mobilization of women by creating new avenues for women to participate in political life and have control over financial resources. Traditional ideologies, divisions of labor, and the social construction of gender have also been altered by such factors as the involvement of women in the guerrilla movement and the key developmental role played by nongovernmental organizations and women's groups. The article continues by considering the effect of these changes on contemporary gender relations. Data from a sampling of women and men from two regions of the country and of small business owners provide the basis for a discussion of the different strategies (such as small scale entrepreneurship and networking) employed by women to meet their daily and longterm needs. It is concluded that women's attempts to change their lives have influenced macrolevel social structure. However, it remains to be seen whether these postinsurgency gains can be sustained.     

Women in prison: Ethnographic reflections on gender and the carceral state

The criminal justice system is increasingly becoming the subject of national dialogue throughout the United States due to the sheer number of people it impacts: according to the Department of Justice, nearly 7 million, or 1 in 35, U.S. residents are under some form of correctional control. The four books reviewed in this essay derive their findings from ethnographic methods that offer deep insights into the carceral state’s everyday operations in individual women’s lives, while raising profound theoretical and practical questions about gender and governance. We engage with these texts from unique situated standpoints as insider-outsiders with intimate knowledge of the U.S. criminal justice system gleaned from our respective lived experiences, services provision work, and research with currently and formerly incarcerated Wyoming women.     

The construction of gender in colonial Latin America

When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality and Power in New Mexico, 1500–1846. By RAMÓN GUTIÉRREZ. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991. Pp. xxx + 424.

Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America. Edited by ASUNCIÓN LAVRÍN. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989. Pp. v + 349.

Gender and Disorder in Early Modern Seville. By MARY ELIZABETH PERRY. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990. Pp. 206.

To Love, Honor and Obey in Colonial Mexico: Conflicts Over Marriage Choice, 1574–1821. By PATRICIA SEED. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988. Pp. 322

História e Sexualidade no Brasil. Edited by RONALDO VAINFAS. Rio de Janeiro: Edicões Graal Ltda., 1986. Pp. 212.     

Doing gender and development: understanding empowerment and local gender relations

A major dilemma in Gender and Development (GAD) work is why it is that sometimes women may feel better off colluding with gendered structures that ensure their continued subordination rather than seeking approaches that will allow them to break free of this. Kandiyoti (1988 Gender and Society 2 274–90) has identified this apparent collusion as 'patriarchal bargains', which offer women greater advantages than they perceive can be achieved by challenging the prevailing order. Such women are therefore reluctant to engage in empowering activities that may challenge their gendered bargain. This paper explains this dilemma in the context of GAD work undertaken with Bedouin women in Southern Egypt.     

Women,work, property and gender in early modern Europe

Natalie DAVIS & Arlette FARGE eds, A History of Women in the West, III. Renaissance and Enlightenment Paradoxes, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1993, ISBN 0–674–40372‐X.

Merry E. WIESNER, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993, ISBN 0–521–38459–1 hardback, 0–521–38613–6 paperback.

Hilary MARLAND, ed., The Art of Midwifery. Early Modem Midwives in Europe, Routledge, London, 1993, ISBN 0–415–06425–2.

Amy Louise ERICKSON, Women and Property in Early Modem England, Routledge, London, 1993, ISBN 0–415–06267–5.     

Women,gender and feminism in the Australian Journal of Political Science: A review

This review article, written for the fiftieth anniversary of the Australian Journal of Political Science (formerly Politics), analyses articles focusing on women, gender and feminism that were published in the journal. The analysis demonstrates that the study of gender is relevant to a broad range of fields, and methodological approaches used, in political science. It also demonstrates that political science knowledge is itself historically and socially constructed, reflecting both traditional social power relations and the influence of the social movements that challenge them. Consequently, key articles have drawn attention to the ways in which the frameworks of mainstream forms of political science were gender-biased and have sometimes continued to be so, particularly in terms of narrow constructions of the ‘political’. Such narrow constructions may still be contributing to some ongoing gaps in the literature, despite the important contributions made by work published in the journal.     

Privileging masculinity in the social construction of Basque identity

Following a framework developed by Susan Gal and Judith Irvine (1995), this article illustrates how Basque‐medium schools promulgate an androcentric vision of the Basque nation. First, male privilege is upheld in textbooks through the erasure of women's contributions to Basque language and culture, so that men appear as the quintessential Basque speakers and cultural agents. Secondly, language ideologies about Spanish and Basque recursively construct Basque ethnic identity is such a way that it centres on vernacular Basque, whose primary marker is a second person pronoun, ‘hi’, which indirectly indexes male speakers and masculinity. An iconic relationship is thereby created between authentic Basque identity, Basque culture, Basque linguistic forms and masculinity. However, I also show that women have challenged this male privilege in various domains, thereby opening up the possibility of a Basque nation that embraces its female as well as its male members.     

The social construction of persons within the school and society

Atkinson, Paul. Language, Structure and Reproduction: An Introduction to the Sociology of Basil Bernstein. New York: Methuen, 1985. No front‐matter 216 pp. including bibliography and index. No price.

LeVine, Robert A., and Merry I. White. Human Conditions: The Cultural Basis of Educational Developments. New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986. vii + 245 pp. including notes, bibliography, and index. $19.95 cloth.

Lowenthal, Leo. Literature and the Image of Man. New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1986. v + 344 pp. including notes to chapters. $24.95 cloth.

Steedman, Carolyn, Cathy Urwin, and Valerie Walkerdine, eds. Language, Gender and Childhood. New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986. vi + 265 pp. including bibliography, name and subject indices. $18.95 paper.     

Imagining the Web: The social construction of the Internet in Italy

The article analyses social discourses about the Internet in Italy from the mid-1990s onwards, taking its examples from advertising. Beyond the individual campaigns and their subjects there have been two distinct trends in Internet advertising. The first has made an effort to build the Internet as a cognitive object, the second has presented the Internet as a 'possible world'. The article aims to account for the ways in which the Web has been thematized in Italy: its fields of reference, and how its possible social and personal uses have been anticipated.     

当代视野中个人与社会的和谐发展

个人与社会的和谐发展是科学发展观的必然要求,是构建社会主义和谐社会的重要组成部分,具有重大的理论和现实意义。社会主义市场经济体制的建立和完善,把个人与社会从血缘、地缘或职缘共同体中解放出来成为各自发展的主体,为个人与社会的和谐发展奠定坚实的经济基础;建设服务型政府,实现三个根本转变,为个人与社会的和谐发展创造稳定的政治环境;创建契约型文化,实现从身份向契约的转变,为个人与社会的和谐发展提供良好的文化背景。     

Railway development as Symbolising ideas of social construction: (With Special Reference to Railway Development in Australia)

The townscape of “old” Lerwick reflects its traditional focus on the sea for its economic base. The major elements in this cohesive visual character are the closely clustered houses in the steep hillside district of the Lanes, the narrow, winding principal commercial street, and the lodberries projecting out into the harbour. The latter were constructed to meet the needs of the prosperous expanding trade period of the latter half of the 18th century and first half of the 19th century. Harbour improvements in the final quarter‐century of the 1800s ended their commercial usefulness. After a century of declining use and of neglect they are being restored as part of the renewal of “old town” Lerwick.     

Establishing Ground: Representing gender and race in a mixed housing development

In this paper we explore the sociospatial transformation of the Columbia Point public housing project in Dorchester, Boston to Harbor Point, a mixed-income, multiethnic community. We examine gender, race, class and cultural representations of public housing generally, and of Columbia Point specifically, in order to understand the origin and significance of these representations for the physical and social designs of the new community. African-American women residents were and continue to be largely responsible for the transformation of the public housing project. We suggest how the combined representations of African-American women, the welfare system, single motherhood and public housing underlie media misperceptions of what the new Harbor Point is .     

Enslaved African Women in Nineteenth-Century Iran: The Life of Fezzeh Khanom of Shiraz

Fezzeh Khanom (c. 1835–82), an African woman, was a slave of Sayyed ‘Ali-Mohammad of Shiraz, the Bab. Information about her life can be recovered from various pious Baha'i histories. She was honored, and even venerated by Babis, though she remained subordinate and invisible. The paper makes the encouraging discovery that a history of African slavery in Iran is possible, even at the level of individual biographies. Scholars estimate that between one and two million slaves were exported from Africa to the Indian Ocean trade in the nineteenth century, most to Iranian ports. Some two-thirds of African slaves brought to Iran were women intended as household servants and concubines. An examination of Fezzeh Khanom's life can begin to fill the gaps in our knowledge of enslaved women in Iran. The paper discusses African influences on Iranian culture, especially in wealthy households and in the royal court. The limited value of Western legal distinctions between slavery and freedom when applied to the Muslim world is noted.     

Swahili women since the nineteenth century: theoretical and empirical considerations on gender and identity construction

This paper provides an analysis and update on the theoretical discussion about the link between gender and identity and uses a group of Swahili women in eastern Africa as an example of how this link works in practice. The first part of the study provides a brief overview of gender theory related to the terms "gender" and "identity." It is noted that gender is only one aspect of identity and that the concept of gender has undergone important changes such as the reconceptualization of the terms "sex" and "gender." The second part of the study synthesizes the experiences of Swahili women in the 19th century when the convergence of gender and class was very important. The status of Muslim women is reviewed, and it is noted that even influential women practiced purdah and that all Swahili women experienced discrimination, which inhibited their opportunities for socioeconomic mobility. Slavery and concubinage were widespread during this period, and the participation of Islamic women in spirit possession cults was a way for women to express themselves culturally. The separation of men and women in Swahili culture led to the development of two distinct subcultures, which excluded women from most aspects of public life. The third part of the study looks at the experiences of Swahili women since the 19th century both during and after the colonial period. It is shown that continuity exists in trends observed over a period of 200 years. For example, the mobility of Swahili women remains limited by Islam, but women do exert influence behind the scenes. It is concluded that the socioeconomic status of Swahili woman has been shaped more by complex forces such as class, ethnic, religious, and geographic area than by the oppression of Islam and colonialism. This study indicates that gender cannot be studied in isolation from other salient variables affecting identity.